


Eternities

by ursahelianthus



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Sherlock Dreams, Sherlock Observes Watson, Sherlock sleeps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursahelianthus/pseuds/ursahelianthus
Summary: Tag for 3x09 “The Eternity Injection”In the end Watson stayed over on the sofa.





	Eternities

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly the first of a series of small scenes, seeing as these two have run away with my heart. Also the first I've written of them, so concrit or any thoughts welcome, especially on characterization. The style is.. a little experimental, but Sherlock loves experiments, so I thought I'd try it out.

In the end Watson stayed over on the sofa, and just her presence seemed to quiet the brownstone. Seemed to still the deep corners and the creaking architecture, and all the shadows of his mind. She somehow focused the noise and energy that constantly deluged him into a single comprehensible stream, conducting the chaos of the world, keeping him in tune, in time. The composure and compassion that emanated from her even in sleep steadied him, enough for him to leave the temptation of the ledge, cross the barren tundras of sobriety, and come back to Watson and their work. Try as he might, he remained unable to account for her effect by way of any scientific phenomenon, and had long resigned himself to accepting the truth of it with equal measures puzzlement and gratitude.

As long as she was here, he may as well take advantage and accomplish some actual quieting. Some mental-audio hygiene, as it were. Creeping around the brownstone, he extinguished the hum of electric lights one by one, powered off the computers and their fans, the media room monitors, the grow-lamps he forgot he had on in the basement, the great droning beast of the refrigerator. It was nearly empty, and high time he cleaned it anyway, but that was a task for morning. Tonight, Watson. Tomorrow, household duties. He could finally hear the silence.

Tasks completed, he sidled up to the couch, dropping soundlessly to the floor near her head, scooting close enough to feel little puffs of air as she breathed. He has not had a chance to observe her at this close a range for over a year. She would be less than thrilled to have him inches from her face while she slept, but he could hear her now, in, out, twelve respirations per minute. Her eyelashes flickered once, and her pulse pushed regularly, comfortingly, at the thin skin of her throat just beneath her jaw. Proof of life. Blood rushing by in the darkness of her artery, oxygenated, unspilled. He counted her freckles again (four more than before) and committed her to memory, gathering his evidence. _Thursday, March 12, 2015, 2:03am – This is how Watson looks when she falls asleep being a faithful friend._ No reason to fear she’ll leave him; no reason to doubt that she cared. She slept like the dead. Vulnerable to him, safe with him. 

He tucked a blanket over her and slept peacefully on the floor there beside, or what passed for peacefully for him anyway, a full five hours. He dreamt of the brownstone, oddly enough. A generic morning somewhere between memory and imagination - Watson at the stove making tea, Watson teasing him for running out of cereal yet again, Watson reaching up and, to his surprise, pulling a backup box of cornflakes out of one of her designated cabinets. The fond if exasperated look on her face – _you remember everything except groceries, Sherlock._ An impulse seized him, painful in its intensity, to reach out and touch her. To put his fingertips to that pulse, his palms to her shoulders; to grasp her hands in the thin air of his dream. He only wants to make sure she’s alive and here. To feel her skin, smooth and warm, the movement of muscles beneath. To try, though he doesn’t have the right, to have her stay.

He woke at dawn, and she was there.


End file.
